


Vice

by citrusella



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: (well not quite but it's presented like it's teetering on a line), Caffeine Addiction, Insomnia, Nightmares, Post-Episode: s06e19 I Am My Monster, Pre-Episode: s06e20 The Future, Steven Universe Needs Therapy, more like during a sort of backslip that happens sometime before we see him in the final episode, not like immediately after monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusella/pseuds/citrusella
Summary: He could stop whenever he wanted to.He just didn't want to.Or: Steven falls into a bad habit and tries to rationalize it as okay as long as he's notcompletelyabandoning the idea of improving his life.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64
Collections: lofi fanfics to practice social distancing to





	Vice

**Author's Note:**

> I love that I can spit out full fics in like a three hour span but can't make any appreciable strides in my works in progress. XD

He was doing it again. He was doing it again, and he was _sure_ his therapist was going to hate him _this_ time.

Well… he… huh… she'd not hated him for anything before, had said nothing he could do would be likely to make her _hate_ him… but there were only so many times a person could take someone going back on their word, right?

He'd gone back on his word a lot. It was a wonder anyone still liked him.

…He was supposed to reassure himself that recovery wasn't linear, that _slips were_ _natural_ , do some sort of worksheet from therapy when he felt like this, but he just wasn't up for it.

He was supposed to do it even if he wasn't "up for it"… but he'd already gone back on everything else, so who cared if it was what he was "supposed to" do?

The 6 am opening title of WUDV's newscast played on his television, muted so maybe there was less chance of the gems noticing and thinking something was up. The first streaks of sun across the horizon were streaming in through his bedroom window.

He had not slept.

He had not been watching TV, either, other than to confirm it wasn't broadcasting his deepest fears, worries, nightmares for all of Beach City, all of _Delmarva, even_ , to see and hear and _judge_ and oh, gosh, he really _was_ pitiful.

He sighed.

No hurting television. No Connie calling to say it's on her TV, too, making that _face_. He was simply staying up to help other people out. He was…

He was _not_ fine. He was nowhere _near_ fine, and that was probably something he should have considered putting on the seemingly never-ending laundry list of "things to bring up at the next appointment".

He sighed again and headed downstairs, got out his old water bottle, hoped no one was looking. He _really_ didn't need questions, judgment from the gems about this.

He added one packet, then two, three, four.

It wasn't protein, it was Sparkle Light. Strawberry. Energy.

It was okay, it'd be okay, it really wasn't any different than two cups of coffee, except he didn't really like coffee. (He didn't _really_ like this, either?)

…As long as he didn't drink like 12 bottles of the almost sickeningly strong concoction, he'd be fine, right?

Or, well, not fine, he wasn't _fine_. He'd be okay. Alive. Not, like, overdosing on it or whatever.

Sure, his entire body felt _wrong_ , as if he could feel everywhere his blood pulsed, everywhere anything—fabric, air, _people_ —came in contact with him. His heart raced, his muscles tensed. But _he was in control of it_. It wasn't like the cortisol, the pink, the swelling. He could control it. If he didn't like it, he could make it stop.

He could stop whenever he wanted to.

He just didn't want to.

~~Oh, geez, he sounded like an addict on one of those off-color sitcoms. Was he addicted to this stuff? Could you _get_ addicted to caffeine?~~

No. He was just… using it to help him through a rough time, that's all. He'd go off it one night and find the nightmares had left him alone once more and he'd stop using it. It was just… it was like an SSRI or a reverse sleeping pill or something. Something to keep him functional while he worked through the root cause of the insomnia in the first place: those stupid, stupid dreams.

He could hear his therapist rolling her eyes.

He liked to think he couldn't understand why—he _wanted_ to work on things, _wanted_ to feel better, _be_ better—but he knew exactly why.

Why was he such a mess?


End file.
